About Odin
The God of Trolls
“You may not know this, but there is much more to Odin than meets the eye,” said Troll Mother Minta one day apropos of I don’t know what.
I looked up at her and she could tell by my expression that what on earth was she talking about. “He’s no regular god, he’s so much more than that. Has so many other sides.” she added. Which clarified nothing for me.
“How can anyone be so much more than a god?” I wondered slash suggested.
“If you’re aiming for clever, you’re missing the mark,” she warned.
“Sorry. But he is your god, though,” I said. Meaning your, trolls’.
“He is one of them.”
“I read somewhere that trolls, in the olden troll-days at least, sacrificed to him. Human sacrifices even. The younger the better, apparently. Children the best.”
“Don not believe everything you read,” she said.
“I don’t,” I said.
“Our tribe never sacrificed humans, old or young.”
“Be still my heart.”
“Missed again.”
“Some tribes did though,” I added, helpfully (or not).
“Possibly,” she said. “Probably,” she added.
“Effectively?” I asked. Meaning, did Odin respond positively.
“Odin doesn’t really care for sacrifice,” she said. “So, no.”
“And this you know, because…?”
“Because I’ve met him.”
Sensing a Minta story coming, I clammed up.
:
Odin, as the king and ruler of all other Aesir troll gods, usually stays in Asgard in order to keep an eye on his fellow deities—who do need an Odin-eye kept on them. Even so, now and then he sets out on one of his long, solitary wanderings throughout the cosmos to make some more discoveries.
For a god, and for a troll, he is curiously curious. There are few stones in the universe he has left unturned in order to see what wisdom might lurk beneath. Some say he’s written many, many books, walls and walls of books, to house his many, many discoveries.
:
Normally I never interrupt her once she starts telling, it is not so very advisable, but this just left my mouth and took wing: “But you trolls don’t use writing. You don’t even have an alphabet. What I know of, anyway.”
“Are you going to listen or are you going to talk?” she said.
I re-clammed.
:
Others say that every time he returns from one of his quests, he gathers a group of novice gods around him and tells them all about his findings, charging them with the remembering of everything he said, in minutest detail. And for all time. In case he needs to be reminded at some point, though his memory is vast and accurate and he will probably never call on their assistance. Some say his memory is as wide and bottomless as the cosmos itself. Others say that his memory is the cosmos itself.
Then he’ll stay home for a while—hundreds of years by our reckoning, a week or two by his. Then he’s off again, looking for answers to questions he has yet to form.
In many ways Odin is a bundle of contradictions. Wiser than most, if not everyone, he still scours the universe for answers. And though by all accounts he is an effective ruler—tight reins, tight reign—he is not what you’d expect a good king to be. Or a good god.
If you look for divine justice and fairness, you would do much better turning to some of the other gods—Thor perhaps—for Odin cares not a nickel for fairness and justice, not in the conventional sense anyway.
He is the divine patron of kings and queens, but he is also the patron of outlaws and he loves few things more than he loves rebels.
When you think that now you finally understand him, he’ll show a side you’ve never seen before or ever suspected and now you’ve un-understood him all over again.
And he is not only a war-god, which side of him I have or have not told you about before, but he is also a poetry-god.
As a lover of poems, his name means “Master of Ecstasy”, as a warrior it means “The Furious.”
Sitting with friends, he is jovial and gladdens the spirits of all around him, but when at war, which he loves, he’s the grimmest of grim. The thirstiest of the thirsty.
These days, some misguided trolls hold Odin the war-god up as an eminently honorable ruler and battlefield commander (not to mention impossibly muscular), but to the ancient trolls, who knew him better, he was nothing of the sort.
Compared with the usual noble-war-god suspects, such as Thor, Odin can be very un-noble indeed, and is never beyond inciting war just for the sake of smelling some blood and once he’s got a war going, he doesn’t concern himself with the average, bleeding warrior, but only lavishes his blessings on those astounding and valiant fighters he considers worthy of a god’s favor (aka sword).
He is particularly fond of the berserkers and those other warrior-shamans whose dark fighting skills draw their strength from ecstatic unification with ferocious totem animals, usually wolves or bears, and, by extension, with Odin himself, who is the divine master of such beasts.
:
At which point I unclam again: “But wolves are your oldest and fiercest enemy. And you don’t particularly care for bears either. Do they hold Odin as their god, too?”
She frowned at me, but did answer, even if briefly: “They do.”
I judged it wise not to pursue this line of inquiry much further.
:
Bottom line: as a war-god, Odin cares not about the reasons behind any given conflict (which he might well have kick-started himself) or even its outcome, but rather with the raw, chaotic battle-frenzy that drives any such struggle. Wolves charging bears. Bears charging humans. Trolls charging all.
And not only does Odin care for none but the exceptional warrior, his bias toward the elite extends to all realms and activities. He cares for princes and kings and not a nickel for the farmer or the cobbler. He cares for the gifted poet but not a farthing for the academic scribbler—which he has little or no patience for. He cares for the blood-thirsty necromancer but less than nothing for the healer.
Of course, as the king of the Aesir gods, he is the divine archetype of a good ruler. He is also the legendary founder of many royal lines—some supposedly proven and some simply rumored or hoped—and princes are as likely as shamanistic warriors to claim him as their inspiration (and often as their progenitor).
While many human societies, the Vikings for example, worshiped Odin, he was never a people’s god. The man on the street, or behind the plow, was looking for a more benevolent deity than he. He was, however, always the deity of choice for the ruling factions.
At the time when the human worship of Odin peaked, their societies were normally organized in a three-tiered social and political hierarchy: the first tier consisted of rulers (kings and princes), the second of warriors, and the third of farmers and the rest of those who kept life going.
Some have mapped the Aesir gods onto this schema, and Odin, along with Thor, corresponds to the upper tier, the rulers.
When it comes to this, however, the crucial difference between Thor and Odin is that Thor concerns himself with rule by law and justice, whereas Odin favors rule by magic and cunning. Thor is the sober and virtuous ruler; Odin is the devious, inscrutable, and inspired ruler.
And, as I said, Odin is the god and helper of outlaws, and of those who, for some heinous crime or other, have been banished from society. Like Odin, many such men were strong-willed warrior-poets who were apathetic to established society.
Nonconformists, is probably what you would call them.
In fact, there’s even a tale that tells of Odin being outlawed from Asgard for ten of their years, an eternity in ours, so that the other gods and goddesses wouldn’t be tarnished by the vile reputation he had acquired amongst both trolls and humans. Though, who in Asgard could outlaw and expel Odin, and make it stick, this the tale does not tell—and it is indeed a legitimate question.
Another bottom line: whatever their social stature, the men and women favored by Odin are those distinguished by their intelligence, creativity, and competence in the proverbial “war of all against all,” what we would call “dog-eat-dog” mayhem—which Oden loves.
Creative mayhem.
Whether such people end up kings or criminals is mostly a matter of luck—Odin knows this and loves them all.
Unlike the common human god, where God is generally all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving, and so on, when it comes to our gods, they are none of these things. Like any human, any tree, or hawk, they are limited by their particularity. For Odin, any limitation—and he was aware of his own—is to be overcome by any means necessary and his means are often a relentless and ruthless quest for more wisdom, more knowledge, and more power, usually of a magical sort.
Bearing witness to this is his appearance: his single, piercing eye. His other eye socket is empty—he offered this other eye in payment for some very expensive morsels of wisdom. He has remained mum on precisely what wisdom that was or is.
On another occasion, Odin sacrificed himself to himself, as he described it, by hanging on the world-tree Yggdrasil for nine days and nights, receiving no form of help or nourishment from his companions. As a reward for this foolhardiness, Yggdrasil imparted to Odin the ancient knowledge of runes, the magically-charged ancient alphabet that was held to contain many of the greatest secrets of existence.
Now learned—some say quite accomplished—in this language, he is said to have boasted: “With the secret of runes, I was fertilized and grew wise. From a word to a word, I was led to a word. From a story to a story, I was led to a story.”
As is well-documented, the shaman must typically undergo a ritual death and rebirth in order to acquire his or her powers, and Odin underwent just such an ordeal with his discovery of the runes.
Unlike many shamans, however—who are a self-conscious and proud lot—Odin cares not a bit about his own reputation, and will not turn away from any form of ecstasy, even those that bring ill repute or, as I said already, might kill you.
Odin’s competitive side once drove him to challenge the wisest of the giants to a contest to see who was more knowledgeable and learned. The prize was the head of the loser, and Odin won by asking his opponent something that only Odin himself could possibly know. The giant cried foul while Odin then claimed his prize and returned to Asgard with a large head in more ways than one.
Odin speaks only in poems, and the ability to compose poetry is a gift he grants at his pleasure. He stole the mead of poetry, the primeval ability to speak and write beautifully and persuasively, from the giants. Ever since, he has dispensed it to certain gods, humans, and other beings whom he deems worthy of it.
The name of this mead is Óðrœrir, “The Stirrer of Óðr,” (Óðr meaning ecstasy, fury, or inspiration). In fact, Óðr is the root of Odin’s name as well. This intoxicating drink, along with the power it grants, is yet another side of Odin’s love of ecstasy.
When modern human writers speak of the gods and goddesses of other peoples, they generally tried to identify them with deities from their own religion. When they mentioned Odin, the Romans thought of him as Mercury, the divine figure who guides those who have just died from the realm of the living to that of the dead, and, in due time, back to the land of the living again. This, to our thinking, shows that Odin’s associations with death is seen as even more significant than his associations with war, or else he would have been likened to Mars. The comparison to Mars usually fell to Thor instead.
Odin also presides over Valhalla, the most prestigious of the dwelling-places of the dead. After every battle, he and his helping-spirits, the valkyries, which means “choosers of the fallen”, comb the field and take their pick of half of the slain warriors to carry back to Valhalla. Odin’s sister Freya then claims the remaining half.
He was also a frequent recipient of human sacrifice—not troll sacrifice mind you—especially of royalty, nobles, and enemy armies. This was generally accomplished by means of a spear, a noose, or both—the same manner in which Odin sacrificed himself to himself in order to acquire knowledge of the runes.
His mastery of necromancy, the magical art of communicating with and raising the dead, is frequently noted.
While there are probably many reasons Odin maintains his intercourse with the dead—including his desire to learn what knowledge and wisdom they might have gained—the most significant reason might be his dread-driven desire to have as many of the best warriors as possible on his side when he must face the wolf Fenrir during Ragnarok (the final battle)—even though he knows that he’s doomed to die (at least temporarily) in that battle.
One of Odin’s many names is Allfather because he is the father of all of the gods. And, as I’ve already said, Odin is the divine ancestor of many royal lines—at least reputedly. He is both an Aesir God, a Vanir god (the Vanir god Odr is only an extension or transposition of Odin), and a giant (his mother is Bestla, one of the first frost-giants). One ancient poem even identifies him with önd, the breath of life.
Bottom-bottom line: Odin personifies the fury and ecstasy that lie at the heart of many troll lives. And this is why Odin is the greatest of all gods—and as his chosen people, if you will (or can stomach it) we are to others as rulers are to common people.
In fact, Odin and his fellow gods are the vital forces that hold the cosmos together. And as the Allfather, Odin is the vital force of all vital forces. He is the breath of life and he played a greater role than any other god in the creation of the world. Without his rising ecstasy, and the enchantment, insight, and clarity that it brings, life—and in particular a life worth living—would be impossible.
That is why we trolls regard Odin, even though one of several, our main god. And that is why we are Odin’s chosen people.
:
Here Minta fell silent.
“So, he’s flawed.” Not really a question.
“Perhaps.”
“And you’ve met this guy?”
She looked at me long and hard before she answered—suspecting, I suspect, disrespect from my end. There really was none and I think she discerned that, eventually.
“I have met him, yes.”
“Care to tell me about it?”
“Another time.”
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